Only two days now, before we give our little dinner-party, and Philip finds his opportunity of speaking to papa. Oh, how I wish that day had come and gone!

I try not to take gloomy views of things; but I am not quite so happy as I had expected to be when my dear was in the same town with me. If papa had encouraged him to call again, we might have had some precious time to ourselves. As it is, we can only meet in the different show-places in the town—with Helena on one side, and Miss Jillgall on the other, to take care of us. I do call it cruel not to let two young people love each other, without setting third persons to watch them. If I was Queen of England, I would have pretty private bowers¹ made for lovers, in the summer, and nice warm little rooms to hold two, in the winter. Why not? What harm could come of it, I should like to know?

The cathedral is the place of meeting which we find most convenient, under the circumstances. There are delightful² nooks and corners about this celebrated³ building in which lovers can lag behind. If we had been in papa’s chapel⁴ I should have hesitated to turn it to such a profane⁵ use as this; the cathedral doesn’t so much matter.

Shall I own that I felt my inferiority to Helena a little keenly? She could tell Philip so many things that I should have liked to tell him first. My clever sister taught him how to pronounce the name of the bishop⁶ who began building the cathedral; she led him over the crypt, and told him how old it was. He was interested in the crypt; he talked to Helena (not to me) of his ambition to write a work on cathedral architecture in England; he made a rough little sketch⁷ in his book of our famous tomb of some king. Helena knew the late royal personage’s name, and Philip showed his sketch to her before he showed it to me. How can I blame him, when I stood there the picture of stupidity, trying to

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